"Trump won’t rule out seeking a third term in the White House, tells NBC News ‘there are methods’ for doing so."

 NBC News reports.

“A lot of people want me to do it,” Trump said in a Sunday-morning phone call with NBC News, referring to his allies. “But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.... I’m not joking...."...

NBC News asked about a possible scenario in which Vice President JD Vance would run for office and then pass the role to Trump. Trump responded that “that’s one” method.

“But there are others too,” Trump added. Asked to share another method, Trump simply responded “no.”

That's for him to know and for NBC to find out. 

"There is a BIG Election in the Great State of Missouri, and we must send a MAGA Champion and True Warrior to the U.S. Senate, someone who will fight for..."

"... Border Security, Election Integrity, our Military and Great Veterans, together with having a powerful toughness on Crime and the Border. I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds, much as they did when they gave me landslide victories in the 2016 and 2020 Elections, and I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement!"

Wrote Donald Trump, quoted in "Trump endorses ‘ERIC’ in Missouri primary, a name shared by rivals/The former president’s unusual endorsement added uncertainty to an already tumultuous race" (WaPo)(the rivals are former governor Eric Greitens and state Attorney General Eric Schmitt).

This is what Democrats actually did in Wisconsin when Scott Walker took office as governor in 2011.

I'm reading a NYT article that's teased on the front page with the headline "Some Trump Voters Warn of Revolution if Clinton Wins" and the quote "People are going to march on the capitols. They’re going to do whatever needs to be done to get her out of office, because she does not belong there." From the text of the article:

[A] new emotion is taking hold among some Trump supporters as they grapple with reports predicting that he will lose the election: a dark fear about what will happen if their candidate is denied the White House. 

Dark? What makes fear dark?

Some worry that they will be forgotten, along with their concerns and frustrations. Others believe the nation may be headed for violent conflict.

Jared Halbrook, 25, of Green Bay, Wis., said that if Mr. Trump lost to Hillary Clinton, which he worried would happen through a stolen election, it could lead to “another Revolutionary War.” “People are going to march on the capitols,” said Mr. Halbrook, who works at a call center. “They’re going to do whatever needs to be done to get her out of office, because she does not belong there.

Oh! He's from Wisconsin. We know all about marching on the capitol here in Wisconsin.

“If push comes to shove,” he added, and Mrs. Clinton “has to go by any means necessary, it will be done.”

The article continues with another quote and it's somebody else from Wisconsin!

“It’s not what I’m going to do, but I’m scared that the country is going to go into a riot,” said Roger Pillath, 75, a retired teacher from Coleman, Wis. “I’ve never seen the country so divided, just black and white — there’s no compromise whatsoever. The Clinton campaign says together we are stronger, but there’s no together. The country has never been so divided. I’m looking at revolution right now.”

The country has never been so divided, but what about this state?

I'm getting ready to hate the new President, and it's a good thing too.

What a golden age we live in. Maybe it doesn't look that way to you now, but looking back, you will see it. We love Obama, the person. Oh, maybe some of you only like him, but you've got to at least like him, the most likeable person who ever ambled onto the American political scene.

I mean, I know some of you hate him, personally, but you are a tiny group. Those who don't like Obama's policies and his methods still overwhelmingly like or love Obama the man.

You might not notice this pleasant feeling, but you will. Just as you don't notice physical comfort and mental peace, you will notice when it's gone. And the feeling of loving the President is about to become very obvious, because we are not going to love the new President.

But that's a good thing. We need our distance, so we can look critically at what is being done to us and to the world. We're going to feel bad — even those of us who vote for the winner — and we should. It will keep us alert.

I haven't had the feeling of hating the President since early 2001, when George W. Bush first took over. Unfortunately, I lost that hating feeling later that year. I'm getting ready to hate the new President, and I don't want a repeat of 2001. I don't want to have to lose that feeling of critical distance from the President of the United States, and I know exactly the kind of thing that could wreck it for me again.

"Donald Trump has lost little support since the first presidential debate, despite days of damaging news stories about his treatment of women, according to a new poll."

"Hillary Clinton leads Trump 47 percent to 43 percent among likely voters in a four-way race, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post national poll."

That's Politico, putting in rather bland terms something that ought to be powerfully alarming to those who cannot abide even the risk that Trump could win the presidency. Why isn't he losing by a lot more? What explains his pesky resiliency?

Nearly 70 percent say they believe that Trump has “made unwanted sexual advances toward women,” a stunning number that comes after the publication of lewd comments the now-Republican nominee made on a hot mic in 2005, and amid allegations by several women who say he touched them inappropriately. (Trump has said his comments were just "locker room talk" and denies the groping accusations.)

And a majority of registered voters -- 55 percent -- say that Trump's treatment of women is a legitimate issue, version 42 percent who say it wasn't. Similarly, most voters aren't buying Trump's apology for the 2005 video -- 57 percent of registered voters say it was insincere, and only 40 percent agree it sounded like "typical locker room talk by men."

Just 30 percent of registered voters say Trump has a “strong moral character,” versus 45 percent for Clinton. Only 34 percent view Trump as honest and trustworthy, down from 42 percent in last month’s survey. And just 34 percent say Trump has the right temperament to be president, while 59 percent say Clinton does.

And yet, she's only got 4 points on him. She must be truly loathed. I know she wants to win, but imagine winning like that, knowing you are not wanted.

As for Trump, the battering he's taking is epic, but he still survives.



Oh, sorry. That's just something I channel-surfed into on TV yesterday. It flashed back on me somehow.

Godzilla is a monster, causing endless destruction, but when he goes down losing, you get this crazy empathy for him. Am I saying Trump is a monster? Trump is like a monster, tromping through the built-up structures of American politics. How can he be stopped? Nothing seems to work. He keeps going. Yes, but in the end, he'll go down. Afterwards, you'll remember and think oddly fondly of him, and the characters who defeated him won't have your heart. Unlike a dead movie monster, Trump will still be a live human being, doing... whatever. The movie monster, even though killed in the movie, manages — if we've loved him — to get brought back to life for the sequels and remakes. But Trump will be around, and we'll want to see him again. His relentless, unstoppable rampage was so perversely rousing and even, for some, endearing.

Writing this makes me remember that Scott Adams has been talking about Trump's campaign as a movie. Adams saw Trump as the protagonist in a non-monster movie:

He explains that in the first act of a movie, "something unexpected [happens] that changes somebody's life trajectory" -- like deciding to run for president. In the second act, "you would see your protagonist overcoming a number of smaller hurdles," ending with the discovery of a seemingly unsolvable problem. In the third act, the protagonist grows or changes in order to solve the unsolvable problem. 

With that template, Adams predicts Trump will win the election. The protagonist solves his problem in the movie, and that could happen in real live because

He... wrote [last October]: "Once we recognize the movie form, we root for the hero, automatically. We have been trained by Hollywood to do that. You can’t turn it off in your mind. You can’t ignore it. If a candidate can wrap his or her personal story into a three-act form, that is the highest level of persuasion."

"The idea of the third-act problem usually involves a character flaw of your hero," he explained [in mid-August]. "It is a problem that they specifically can't solve because of a character defect. They're afraid of something, they can't forgive, they've been a liar all their life until now... That's what makes it a good movie, we like to see people change in some positive way. That's what makes us feel good. Because in the real world we don't see it happen, hardly ever."

So this is the idea that movies have trained our minds to identify the hero and root for him, especially as his problems become insurmountable. Within that template, everything bad that happens to Trump is good, because it sets up the profoundly satisfying emotional reward. The audience/voters could make him win, because deeply, psychically we want the hero to win. But it's one thing to watch and feel satisfaction when the hero overcomes all the obstacles. It's another to get up off the couch and translate your deep desires into the real-world action of voting.

And what's missing from Adams's movie analysis is the monster hero. We want his rampaged stopped, we expect the closure that comes with killing him, and our deep psychic connection to the monster comes not as he wins but as he dies. Look how profound and exalted it is when Godzilla dies:

Why Donald Trump is not like Citizen Kane.

Instapundit links to Eric Felten in The Weekly Standard, "Citizen Trump?/The eerie similarities between DJT and CFK":

"Wellesnet," the online Orson Welles news and fan site has noted that Donald Trump's campaign is coming, more and more, to resemble the doomed election bid of Charles Foster Kane in the 1941 film. One will remember that things for Citizen Kane started to come unraveled when he threatened, at a big rally, to prosecute his opponent once elected.

"But here's one promise I'll make and Boss Jim Gettys knows I'll keep it," Kane says. "My first official act as governor of this state will be to appoint a special district attorney to arrange for the indictment, prosecution and conviction of Boss Jim W. Gettys."

As Wellesnet recounts, in turn, "Gettys destroys Kane's political aspirations by leaking a sex scandal involving Kane in the final stretch of the campaign."

Citizen Kane was a movie about a character who, of course, didn't think of himself as a character in a movie. He was not aware of the drama of his story arc. He was not motivated to crank it up into the greatest story that ever hit the big screen.*

Donald Trump is a real man. He is witnessing the approach of doom. Maybe he holds onto some shred of hope — he's a fighter, he likes to win — but that's all the more reason to make his story as interesting as possible, for the inevitable movie or movies — who knows how many movies there will be over the years? Donald Trump has 4 more weeks to write the story that will be enacted in those movies he sees coming.

Alec Baldwin, his "SNL" impersonator, is a great and serious dramatic actor. Surely, Baldwin will get a movie made. I look forward to the meta material. Baldwin will play 2 roles — oh, should I shut up and just write the screenplay? — Trump and Alec-Baldwin-as-Trump mocking Trump on "SNL." We see Baldwin/Trump seething and scheming as he watches Trump/Baldwin imitating him.

He's seething and scheming and then he laughs maniacally. Suddenly, he envisions the movie that will be made.

For decades they've been saying that "Citizen Kane" is the greatest movie of all time, but my movie will be bigger and greater. It will be huuuge. Because this really happened. Not just a stupid sex scandal that brought Kane down — a tawdry little thing — but a torrent of craziness like nobody ever saw. A sex scandal — that's Bill Clinton crap and Bill Clinton's crap is already part of my story. My story! It will all be in there. The aging actresses — they're always looking for parts — they'll be falling over each other trying to get the roles of Paula Jones and Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey and that other one, the 12-year-old that Hillary laughed at. And I've got all the young women too. So many roles! All the beauty queens — Alicia Machado — and the journalists who all ganged up against me. Megyn Kelly. Megyn Kelly will beg to play the part of herself in my movie. My movie! There's Nancy O'Dell and that actress in the purple dress — the one I took the Tic Tacs for — and Ivanka — Ivanka! — and Hillary herself. Hillary! Ha! Streep wants that. Streep will beg on her knees for that. Of course, Streep will do it. Streep or any one of those old actresses hot for a meaty role — a meaty roll with Bill. Heh. Who will play Bill? Who cares?! The question is me! Baldwin will do it. Of course! It's such a great role. What am I saying? The story isn't over yet. The climax hasn't even happened. This real-life story is still getting written — by me, the greatest character in the history of movies. The greatest movie scriptwriter in history. Writing in real life. Writing history moment-by-moment, tweet-by-tweet, impromptu splutterings on stages in front of millions. I can play out whatever crazy real-life destruction — ha ha ha ha ha look out, Paul Ryan! — any destruction-of the-GOP fantasies I want and it's all part of The True Story of Donald Trump. I can say anything, do anything — grab them by their pussy, shoot a guy on 5th Avenue — and it's actual true story, history-of-the-United-States-of-America, craziest thing that ever happened. It's big. It's huge. It's bigger than President of the United States. Fuck President of the United States. You can take that lousy job, Hillary. I am become bigger than you ever imagined becoming! President of the United States — it's just a childish conventional dream. You didn't build that. Go. Live in that ugly little house. It's not like you can actually push the nuclear button. Knock yourself out "fixing" Obamacare and war-and-peace-ing the Middle East for 4 years. Good luck with the America that's going to hate you. Like they already hate you. They're voting for you, but I assure you, Hillary, they hate you. And they're gonna love me — me, the greatest character in the greatest movies, the most movies and the best movies ever made. And fuck you too, Citizen Kane.

________________________

* Citizen Kane was based on a real person, William Randolph Hearst, but he didn't want to be a character in a movie, and he wasn't motivated to live his life, as defeat approached, to maximize the entertainment value of the story if it were presented in movie form. My point in this post is that the more it is apparent to Donald Trump — in these last 4 weeks — that he will lose the election, the more he may fixate on accomplishing something else, such as the destruction of the GOP as we know it or the ruination of the presidency that doesn't get to be his. Trump is an entertainer and he's been entertaining us all along and he has reason to think that he will be entertaining America forever as a character in our history. How big of a character can he be? He wants to be huge.

"We can be assured that a TBN (Trump Breitbart News) Network wouldn’t shy away from the conservative, or even the 'alt-conservative,' label."

"It would be nationalistic, xenophobic, and conspiratorial. If it featured regular appearances by Trump, and if it managed to poach some of the Fox News stars who are friendly toward him, such as Sean Hannity, it might even make money."

Says John Cassidy, at The New Yorker, about — speaking of conspiratoriality — what is "only a conspiracy theory."

I've been thinking about the same subject, and I go in a different direction.

First, I don't think it would be called Trump Breitbart News. Trump isn't going to share billing with Breitbart. It will be Trump, just like Bloomberg is Bloomberg and just like the way Trump has put his name — which he obviously loves as a vivid, punchy brand — on all sorts of buildings and merchandise.

Second, I don't think Trump would want to just make some money and to do it looking backward at Fox.I think he'd want something forward-looking and surprising and highly profitable.

Now, it's feeling like a challenge on an episode of "The Apprentice" and Cassidy looks like a member of the losing team.

I don't know if I'd be on the winning team, but here are some things I said on the topic in a discussion thread on Facebook:

If this thing happens I don't think it will be "right wing media." I think these people -- including Trump's children, who are not right wing (I don't think) -- will figure out a way to be very successful by providing a new mix, and it will include some very progressive things -- pro-gay, pro-woman, and some serious class politics....

Who would you put on? I'd like to see Scott Adams have his own show.

"That Trump knows he's gonna lose. All Trump is doing is setting up a future media empire to take on Fox News and CNN."

"This is the CNN theory. That when Trump loses the election, he's gonna have Steve Bannon and Ailes and they're gonna set up this brand-new news network to take everybody else out. They're gonna swamp Fox News. They're gonna swamp CNN. That's the CNN theory. I know some of the players here. I've not heard a word of that. I can't do thumbs up or thumbs down on it. I have no idea whether any of that has any truth to it, if there's any validity. I do know that CNN's off the rails on this. They're acting paranoid and they've got their conspiratorial hats on and they're dreaming and imagines things."

Said Rush Limbaugh on his show today. I'm trying to think about what's so paranoid about that theory. It makes a hell of a lot of sense to me.

Here's an article in RedState, "Looking Ahead: Trump, Ailes, Bannon And Hannity – News Network On The Horizon?":

With Trump bringing aboard Roger Ailes and Steve Bannon to the campaign, it is not out of the realm of possibility that long term plans include a cable news station....

Trump has been floating this for some time. He believes he's providing ratings for other outlets and not being able to collect on any of it. That would all change if he slapped his name on a news network. The best part for Trump is he wouldn't have to do any of the heavy lifting. Roger Ailes dismissal from Fox News gives Trump access to the man who created the most successful cable news station on the air....

There’s a reason Breitbart News went from hard-charging news outlet to drooling Trump mouthpiece. Bannon emerges from all of this unscathed. ... If Trump wins, he’s in a position of high power; if Trump loses, Bannon could head up a new media empire with Trump’s support and the involvement of new Trump supporter and ousted former Fox News head Roger Ailes.